Valve might be teasing us with a Counter-Strike 2 public beta launch date next week

Earlier this year, Valve made the surprise announcement that it was working on Counter-Strike 2, the long-awaited follow-up to its hit multiplayer first-person shooter, and also an upgrade to the current and highly popular free-to-play version Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

At the time, Valve invited players of CS:GO to test Counter-Strike 2 privately, and for the past few months, they have been doing so without a lot of fanfare. Now it looks like the rest of the world will be able to get hands-on with the sequel very soon.

in a very brief post on the official Counter-Strike 2 X (formerly Twitter) account on Wednesday, the message was simply this: 'What are you doing next Wednesday?"

That happens to be Wednesday, September 27, and most people online believe that was a big hint that the game will begin some kind of public testing on that day.

Previously, Valve said public testing would begin this summer. If September 27 is indeed the launch date for Counter-Strike 2, it will mean Valve missed its summer time frame launch by a few short days.

The game itself will be released as a free upgrade for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, using Valve's in-house Source Engine 2. Any in-game skins that players of the current game own will automatically transfer to Counter-Strike 2.

Besides graphical upgrades, the new game will get some gameplay changes and tweaks. One of those changes is that each match will have a total of 24 rounds, compared to 30 in CS:GO, along with major changes to the game's player ranking system. You can also expect to see many maps get some tweaks and changes as well.

Right now, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is the most played game on Steam by a wide margin. It will be interesting to see how all those millions of players will react to Counter-Strike 2.